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Posts Tagged ‘Jim Parsons Executive Director’

When it rains, I guess, it pours!! Something from Jim Parsons Executive Director for Accountability. Here is some info for you:

A email just doesn’t seem enough, but it’s about the only way I have right now of sharing some news with you. I have resigned from Humble ISD, effective June 30. I start a new job at the University of Texas at Dallas the next day.

I have accepted the position of Assistant Director of the Texas Schools Project and the UT-Dallas Education Research Center. My responsibilities will include expanding the Education Research Center data warehouse, strengthening and expanding research and data sharing relationships with Texas schools districts, managing data standardization and documentation, and directing the evaluation unit of the TSP.

As you may imagine, this is a dream job for me. I’ll have an unbelievable huge set of TinkerToys, and quite a few researchers in Dallas and around the country to join me in playing with them.

1. I will miss you.

2. Remember that I-45 runs both ways! We’ll still be involved in Texas public schools, and we’ll certainly keep in touch with our friends in Humble.

I hope to have the chance to visit between now and the end of June. I look forward to seeing you before we head our various directions.

Thank you all for the experiences we have shared over the years. You have all given me so much.

Last night’s monthly was pretty much as usual, a bit boring. It’s no wonder they are called bored meetings, eh? No, seriously, last night was one of the reasons I decided to blog on Texas Education – accountability. Jim Parsons Executive Director Office of Accountability and Student Assessment, was the main speaker. He talked about where the district stands, not only on TAKS, TAKS scores and benchmark testing, but pretty much everything else that makes us who we are. Schools ratings and how well some, most of the schools did this past year. And from what Jim said, we are doing pretty well. You can see more of what Jim talked about here, the Humble ISD news, and just scroll down a bit.

Something I learned at last nights meeting, Jim spoke on, was how the DBA’s were feared by many. They were not welcomed with open arms and that is because of the fear factor. The outcome is; good things came out of that fear. The district was able to look at the DBA’s as a learning mechanism and a gauge on where we needed to focus our attention towards TAKS.

We still have much work to do on Math and Science, we need to focus on english language learners and the drop out rate. The state is still making us jump through hoops, and we keep doing it, only to come out better on the other side. Another topic of concern is the dropouts and high school completion rates. We will be focusing on that, among others things, as well. This is a topic I have been seeing come up more and more, as of late, not so much at Humble ISD, but across the state.

Dr. Sconzo gave kudos to our Deborah Yocham, Facility Planning and Construction Director, on what a fine job she is doing. Seems we are seeing the light at the end of the construction tunnel on some of our ongoing projects, ie: Kingwood High. Mr. Lapeze brought up how we need to get the parents involved more. Hello, this is what I’ve been saying all along! I also feel we seriously need to get more of the community involved. Don’t get me wrong, we have a lot of businesses and parents alike helping our schools, but, it is not enough. Not only do we need to get them involved, but we also need to educate them on where we are, how we are doing with what we have, where we need to go and how to get there.

Seems the more information I get, the more complicated things become. But, Jim did an excellent job at the podium last night explaining where we’ve been and where we are now. He also explained how we can’t get complacent in any way, shape or form. One of the terms he used was, “we have to move forward just to stay where we are.” I agree with that.

Concerning the board; they once again, looked refreshed (vacations must have been good for them this year,) asking a lot of questions and working it.

I don’t know about ya’ll, but seems we are getting something right. This truly, I feel, can give us the confidence we need to move in a more positive direction, even with all the pitfalls. This still does not change how and what (or again, lack of what) the lege is doing. We still need strong voices, we still need better leadership voted in in November.